‘Twisters’
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, this stand-alone follow-up to the 1996 blockbuster “Twister” stars Glen Powell as the cowboy-esque tornado wrangler Tyler Owens and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate Carter, a meteorologist who had a traumatic run-in with a tornado in her past. The two clash and then collaborate as they chase storms in Oklahoma.
From our review:
Edgar-Jones’s performance seems more withholding than necessary, and we’re left mostly wondering when Powell will return. That mismatch hampers “Twisters,” and the movie lags as a result. ... But that doesn’t mean “Twisters” fails. It’s loaded with fun and sometimes funny set pieces and enough danger to keep you on your toes. There’s a deeper significance, too.
‘Great Absence’
In this moving drama directed by Kei Chika-ura, Takashi (Mirai Moriyama) discovers that his father, Yohji, who left the family to be with another woman, has been struggling with dementia for quite some time — the mystery is what happened during his decline and where the other woman went.
From our review:
Small clues dropped early in the film later help fill in the story as if they’re brush strokes, the full picture of this family’s painful absences emerging only near the end. Furthermore, Yutaka Yamazaki, the film’s revered director of photography, shot it on 35-millimeter film, which gives “Great Absence” a grainy, weighty feeling, as if we’re peeking into some past memory. To follow it all requires close attention, but it’s an attention that’s rewarded.
‘My Spy the Eternal City’
Dave Bautista returns as the CIA operative JJ, who must protect his stepdaughter, Sophie (Chloe Coleman), on her field trip to Italy in this sequel to “My Spy” (2020), both directed by Peter Segal.
From our review:
There are agreeable moments, but also many labored ones, as when Kristen Schaal’s data analyst character advises Sophie on what to do when she starts kissing boys, telling her to “use your tongue like a cleaner shrimp in a shark’s mouth.” ... But too often this muddled movie, which never really settles on a tone, plays its espionage plot points with a dour seriousness that’s at odds with a teen comedy.
‘Crossing’
Lia (Mzia Arabuli) travels to Istanbul to search for her estranged niece, a trans woman, and meets Achi (Lucas Kankava) who is looking for his mother in this drama from Levan Akin.
From our review:
Akin keeps his mood piece feeling natural and breezy, allowing only a few camera flourishes on his own quest for tiny moments of connection, including a nod of recognition between Lia and one of the city’s famous street cats, two wanderers wiling away an afternoon. The setting is half the story, although the cinematographer Lisabi Fridell avoids anything you’d see on a postcard.
‘Crumb Catcher’
Honeymooners Shane (Rigo Garay) and Leah (Ella Rae Peck) contend with unwanted guests and their odd business pitch — it involves the gizmo that restaurants use to sweep tables between courses — in this thriller from Chris Skotchdopole.
From our review:
Chris Skotchdopole’s feature directorial debut sounds like it might be about a creature who eats babies from under their high chair. If only. Instead, it’s an aspirationally farcical home invasion thriller that never fully thrills, despite a game cast that does its darnedest to liven up an unfocused script — Skotchdopole wrote and edited his film, too — that’s fashioned from genre odds and ends.
‘Find Me Falling’
In this romance from Stelana Kliris, a washed-up musician (Harry Connick Jr.) returns to the coast of Cyprus, where he encounters the ex who inspired his greatest hit.
From our review:
The aging rocker, portrayed by Harry Connick Jr., marches out of his new refuge with indignation and barks at a man standing on the cliff’s edge looking out at the sea. Then the man steps into the air and is gone. It’s a surprisingly flip start to a romantic comedy that — with its intergenerational interplay and sunbaked settings — recalls “Mamma Mia!” Yet the writer-director Stelana Kliris is undaunted by, though not entirely in control of, balancing her material’s at times somber, at other times blithe, notes.
‘Oddity’
One year after her twin sister’s murder, the blind medium and curio shop proprietor Darcy (Carolyn Bracken) travels to the scene of the crime with a mysterious wooden mannequin, determined to uncover the truth in this supernatural thriller from Damian McCarthy.
From our review:
Joining a thriving cohort of Irish filmmakers working in horror or on its fringes, McCarthy has a cheeky sense of humor and a clear love for genre traditions. Colm Hogan’s photography is clean and calm, his God’s-eye shots rich with icy foreboding, while Aza Hand’s sound design is lush and at times almost bestial. These ensure an atmosphere that’s rarely less than creepy and occasionally jolting, helping us forgive the underwritten characters and vague jiggery-pokery. How can you chastise a movie that so clearly wants to leave you smiling?
‘Widow Clicquot’
This biopic follows a 19th-century woman (Haley Bennett) as she takes charge of the French champagne house Veuve Clicquot after her husband dies.
From our review:
Directed by Thomas Napper, it’s got all the trappings of a swoony epic à la the 2005 “Pride & Prejudice” (Joe Wright, that film’s director, is a producer on “Widow Clicquot”). But ambitious as it is in scope, the film is also somewhat charmless and dour, caught between wanting to deliver the passion audiences expect from a period romance and constructing a suspenseful underdog tale. It’s too bad it never finds a winning balance. — The New York Times
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